Blood Brothers of Gor

by Norman, John;

  It is lonely in the vision place.

  * * * *

  I lay on my back, looking up at the stars.

  They are very beautiful in the Barrens.

  The rocks on which I lay were cold and wet. It had rained earlier in the evening.

  It is very quiet in the vision place.

  I was very hungry, and thirsty, and cold.

  Sometimes, I knew, the medicine helper does not come. Sometimes men wait in vain. Sometimes they must go back to the camp without a vision. Sometimes they try again, another time. Sometimes they stay longer at the vision place. Sometimes they die there.

  Perhaps the medicine helper will not come, I said to myself. Then I laughed, but with little mirth, for I was Tarl Cabot. I was not of the Kaiila. How absurd that I lay here, on these stones, daubed with white clay, in a vision place, alone with the trees and stars. I was not of the Kaiila.

  I was terribly weak.

  I wondered if the smoke of sweet-brush and needles, if the rubbing with white clay, might not have its effect not so much in encouraging the approach of medicine helpers but in lessening the probability of the approach of sleen. Similarly, the lack of activity on the part of the vision seeker may not be stimulatory to the sleen's attack response, Akihoka tells a story about his own vision seeking. A sleen came and lay down quite near to him, and watched him, until morning, and then rose up and went away. Some vision seekers, on the other hand, are torn to pieces by sleen. Akihoka's medicine helper is the urt. He received his vision on the second night.

  I fell asleep.

  * * * *

  It was gray and cold, a bit after dawn, when I awakened. It was still muchly dark.

  How is it that these people can have visions, I asked myself.

  Perhaps, in time, the tortured body has had enough. Perhaps it then petitions the brain for a relieving vision.

  It helps, of course, to believe in such visions, and to take them as indications of the medicine world.

  Unnatural states of consciousness occur, surely, in the vision place. It is something about the hunger and thirst, the loneliness, I suppose. It is difficult, sometimes, to distinguish between dreams and visions, and realities.

  One does not really need a vision. A dream will do.

  But some men are not good at having visions, and some men cannot remember what they might have learned in dreams. They cannot remember what they did in the dream country, only that they were there.

  But, in such cases, the red savages are merciful. They know that not all men are alike. It is enough to try to dream, to seek the vision. After all, if the medicine helpers will not come, that is their prerogative. A man who fails to attain a vision, or who cannot obtain a suitable dream, may purchase one from another, who is more fortunate, one who will share his vision or dream with him, or sell him one he does not need. Similarly, one may make a gift of a dream or vision to someone who needs it, or would like to have it. Such gifts, to the red savages, are very precious.

  No more can be expected of a man than that he go to the vision place. That is his part. What more can he do?

  The medicine helper is not coming, I said to myself. The medicine helper will not come.

  I have come to the vision place. I have done my part. I am finished with it.

  I then heard a noise.

  I feared it might be a sleen.

  I struggled to sit up, cross-legged. I could not stand. I heard small stones slipping and falling backward, down the slope. I put my hand on the hilt of my knife. It was the only weapon I had in the vision place. But my fingers could scarcely close on the beaded hilt. I could not grasp it tightly. I was too weak.

  I saw the head first, then the body of the creature. It crouched down, a few feet from me.

  It was very large, larger than a sleen. I put my hands on my knees.

  It lifted the object, wrapped in hide, which I had placed before me. Then, with its teeth, it tore off the leather.

  In the half darkness, it was not easy to see its lineaments or features.

  It approached me, and took me in its arms. It pressed its great jaws against my face and, from its storage stomach, brought up water into its oral cavity, from which, holding it there, and rationing it out, bit by bit, it gave me of drink. It gave me then, similarly, a soft curd of meat, brought up, too, from the storage stomach. I fought to swallow it, and did.

  "Are you the medicine helper of Kahintokapa?" I asked, in Kaiila. "Are you the medicine helper of One-Who-Walks-Before?" I asked, in Gorean.

  "I am Zarendargar," came from the translator, in Gorean, "war general of the Kurii."

  36

  The Pit

  I scanned the skies.

  "Hurry!" I ordered the girl.

  "Yes, Master!" she said, cutting at the grass with a turf knife.

  One covers the framework of branches and poles, over the pit, with plates of sod, with living grass. In this way, the grass does not discolor in a matter of hours. Sometimes one must wait for two or three days in the pit.

  The pit is some ten feet in length, some five feet in width and some four feet in height. It must be long enough to accommodate the hobbling log, the hunter and, at times, the bait.

  We heard a cry, as of a fleer. Cuwignaka had seen it first. "Down!" I said, seizing the girl, pulling her down into the high grass.

  I cursed, looking upward. A solitary rider, one of the Kinyanpi, was taking his way northwestward.

  This was an area in which they, too, did this sort of hunting.

  "Get back to work," I told the girl.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  The hobbling log had been dragged to this place, by two kaiila, in the night. The dirt from the pit is hidden under brush or scattered in the grass.

  "It is finished," said the girl, putting the last plate of sod in place.

  "Put the turf knife in the pit," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  She placed the turf knife in the pit, through the hole which we had left as its entrance. The turf knife is a wooden-bladed, saw-edged, paddlelike tool. It is used to cut and saw sod and, when the handle is held in the right hand and the blade is supported with the left, it may be used, also, rather like a shovel, to move dirt.

  I then tied one end of a rawhide rope about her right ankle. The rope was about fifteen feet in length.

  "Get into the pit," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I then followed her into the pit and, within it, we sat down, facing one another. The hobbling log was on my left and on her right. I looped the rope on her right ankle twice about the hobbling log. A much stouter rope was already tied about it, with its loose end, several feet in length, coiled atop it. Other ropes lay near us in the pit.

  I looked up, through the opening in the pit. It was about eighteen inches square. A similar opening, somewhat smaller, was at the other end of the pit. It had its purpose. I could see the sky through the opening, and the clouds.

  "We now wait," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  37

  What Occurred in the Pit

  "You are a pretty she-property," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "Perhaps I will feed you," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "You may approach," I said, "on all fours."

  "Thank you, Master," she said. She crawled toward me, on all fours, in the narrow pit. I put small pieces of pemmican in my hand. She fed from my hand. I put more pemmican in my hand. I then lowered my hand. I felt her kissing, nibbling and licking at my hand, taking the pemmican from it. I put more pemmican in my hand and then lowered it still further. I felt her hair on my body. She nibbled and kissed at my hand, delicately removing pemmican from it, her head following my hand, as I lowered it yet further, and then, with extreme delicacy, with tenderness and gentleness, she nibbled and kissed at my body. "Master desires his slave," she whispered.

  "No," I said, restraining myself. I thrus
t her back. "Go to your place, Slave," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said, and returned to her place.

  "I must remain alert," I said. "I must keep my senses sharp."

  "Yes, Master," she smiled.

  I noted that she knelt now in her place, rather than sat there. I did not effect anything critical. I had merely ordered her to return to her place. I had not specified that she was to sit there.

  I threw her the water bag. She kissed the spike, softly, tenderly, watching me. Then, unexpectedly, mischievously, she quickly swirled her tongue about the spike, and kissed it again. She then took it deeply into her mouth and lifted the bag, holding it with both hands.

  "It is not necessary to drink like that," I said.

  She put her head back yet further, and drank more. Holding the water bag as she did, high, with her head back, arched her back and lifted the line of her breasts, beautifully. She had turned subtly, displaying herself to me in profile.

  I observed how she drank.

  "You are a lascivious slave, Mira," I informed her.

  She turned her belly to me, still drinking. The water bag now prevented her from seeing me.

  Unable to see me, with her hands high, and occupied, she could be easily approached and, unexpectedly, embraced, or attacked.

  I wondered if I should have permitted her clothing. Perhaps if I had given her some clothing she would have been less distracting. Yet as a slave is clothed her clothing is often less of a concealment than it is a device to make her seem more vulnerable, more helplessly, whether she wishes it or not, tantalizingly attractive. The clothing of a slave is usually little more than an invitation to its removal, and her rape. The collar, too, of course, and she was already in a collar, a leather-rope collar, makes her exquisitely attractive, indicating her status, that she is only a lovely, owned she-animal, to be done with as one pleases.

  "It is enough," I said, angrily.

  She brought the water bag down. "I did not mean to drink too much water," she said, innocently. She replaced the leather cap on the spike of the water bag.

  I took the water bag back from her, and put it beside me. "Sit," I told her.

  "Yes, Master," she said, and sat down, with her back against the other side of the pit.

  She began to play with the narrow, dangling, braided-rawhide rope ends of her leather-rope collar, that which I had put on her in the vicinity of the compound of the Waniyanpi. She fiddled with them, and sometimes jerked on them, showing me, thusly, as though inadvertently, that the collar was well fastened on her.

  "Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  She looked at me, and, as though not knowing what she was doing, drew on the rope ends, holding them out a bit from her body. This demonstrated, as though thoughtlessly, the possible leash function of the rope ends.

  "Yes?" I said, irritably.

  "I am sorry if I drank too much water," she said.

  "You are doubtless tired," I said, "and should rest. Lie down, on your side."

  "Yes, Master," she said, and lay down, on her side, her head away from me, one of her feet drawn up more than the other. She lay looking at the side of the dirt pit, her head in the crook of her left arm.

  "You are a pretty slave," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "The rawhide rope on your ankle looks well," I told her. This was the rope which I had tied on her ankle earlier, before I had ordered her into the pit. Its other end was looped twice about the hobbling log.

  "My master put it on me," she said. "Thank you, Master." Women look well in bonds. The purpose of this bond, however, was her own protection. I wondered if she understood that. Perhaps she thought it was merely to hold her in the pit with me. But my will alone could have done that. She was a slave.

  She stretched a bit. How maddeningly desirable are slaves!

  If, outside the pit, she should panic, and try to run, she might, by the rope on her ankle, be kept from doing so; that might save her life; similarly, if she should be paralyzed with fear and find herself unable to move, it might be used to drag her back into the pit. Also, of course, if, unfortunately, she should be seized, it might give us some time to encourage her captor, with blows, and lances and cries, to release her, before it could break and she could be carried off.

  "Must you lie like that?" I asked.

  "It is the shape of my body, Master," she said. "It is my hope that you do not find me displeasing."

  Light filtered into the pit.

  Similar pits, though much smaller, are used for the capture of the taloned Herlit. In the case of the Herlit it is dragged bodily into the pit. There it may be dealt with in various ways. It may be strangled; it may be crushed beneath the knees, with the hunter's weight; or it may be put on its belly, its back to be broken by a swift blow of the foot. In the latter two fashions, the wings are put to the side. This avoids damage to the feathers. It is not easy to kill such a bird with the bare hands, but that is the prescribed methodology. It is regarded as bad form, if not bad medicine, to use a weapon for such a purpose. An adult Herlit is often four feet in height and has a wingspan of some seven to eight feet. The hunter must beware of being blinded or having an artery slashed in the struggle. The fifteen tail feathers are perhaps most highly prized. They are some fourteen to fifteen inches in height, and yellow with black tips. They are particularly significant in the marking of coups. The wing, or pinion, feathers, are used for various ceremonial and religious purposes. The breath feathers, light and delicate, from the base of the bird's tail, are used, with the tail feathers, in the fashioning of bonnets or complex headdresses. They, like the wing feathers, may also be used for a variety of ceremonial or religious purposes. The slightest breeze causes them to move, causing the headdress to seem almost alive. It is probably from this feature that they are called "breath feathers." Each feather, of course, and its arrangement, in such a headdress, can have its individual meaning. Feathers from the right wing or right side of the tail, for example, are used on the right side of the headdress, and feathers from the left wing or left side of the tail are used on the left side of the headdress. In the regalia of the red savages there is little that is meaningless or arbitrary. To make a headdress often requires several birds. To give you an idea of the value of Herlits, in some places two may be exchanged for a kaiila; in other places, it takes three to five to purchase a kaiila. We were not today, however, hunting Herlits.

  "Master is looking at me," she said.

  I looked away from her, angrily. Then I looked back at her, again.

  She lay naked in the pit, before me, on her left side, her head in the crook of her left arm, her right leg, the braided-rawhide rope on its ankle, drawn up a bit more than her left. She was exquisitely curvaceous. Doubtless she knew well how she lay before me. I wondered if she should be beaten or caressed, whipped or raped.

  Sometimes slaves are skillful in enmeshing masters in the toils of their beauty. How often do they conquer us with their softness! How often are we the victims of their delicious, insidious charms and wiles! What drums and alarms are found, upon occasion, in their glances and smiles. What battalions can march in a tearful eye and a trembling lip. What potent strategies can lurk in the line of a breast or the turn of a hip. How a bent knee and a bowed head can wrench a man's guts. Helplessness and vulnerability seem strange shields; how implausible is gentleness as an instrument of diplomacy; what an unlikely weapon is her tenderness. Who is most powerful, I wondered, the master or the slave? Then I realized that it is the master who is most powerful for he may, if he wishes, put her on the block and sell her or dispose of her in any way he pleases. In the end, in the final analysis, it is he, and not she, who holds the whip. It is she who, in the end, must kneel at the feet of a master, completely at his mercy, her will, in the final analysis, nothing. It is she who, in the end, in the final analysis, is owned, and must please, absolutely.

  "Master is still looking at me," she said.

  "Be qu
iet!" I said. I had heard a noise.

  Cautiously I crawled to the larger of the two openings in the ceiling of the pit.

  "It is an urt," I said, "curious. It has now gone away."

  I returned to my place.

  It can be nerve-racking, waiting in the pit. In our hours in the pit we had had several occasions for concern. Twice we had heard the single note of the fleer from Cuwignaka, signaling the passage, overhead, of flighted ones, the Kinyanpi. Once a tabuk, a prairie tabuk, tawny in the Barrens, single-horned, gazellelike, had grazed nearby. It had browsed within feet of us. In a sense this had pleased me, suggesting that our quarry might be in the vicinity; in a sense it had displeased me, suggesting that abundant, alternative game might also be in the vicinity, the tabuk tending to travel in herds. Some varieties of prairie tabuk, interestingly, when sensing danger, tend to lie down. This is counterinstinctual for most varieties of tabuk, which, when sensing danger, tend to freeze, in a tense, standing position and then, if alarmed further, tend to scurry away, depending on their agility and speed to escape predators. The standing position, of course, as is the case with bipedalian creatures, tends to increase their scanning range. The response disposition of lying down, apparently selected for in some varieties of tabuk, tends to be useful in an environment in which high grass is plentiful and one of the most common predators depends primarily on vision to detect and locate its prey. This predator, as would be expected, normally attacks from a direction in which its shadow does not precede it. Any tabuk, of course, if it is sufficiently alarmed, will bound away. It can attain short-term speeds of from eighty to ninety pasangs an Ahn. Its evasive leaps, in the Gorean gravity, can cover from thirty to forty feet in length, and attain heights of ten to fifteen feet. Once we had heard two notes of the fleer, but, that time, as it had turned out, the source of the signal had not been Cuwignaka but, to our frustration, an actual fleer.

  I sat back, against the rear of the pit.

  I looked at the hobbling log, to my left, and the rope attached to it, coiled atop it. I looked to the walls of the pit, to the ceiling, with the poles and sod, and at the light, filtering downward into the pit, and then again I looked at my naked slave.